Paying for Trips

March 15, 2004 7:02 PM

How are trips by sitting executive branch members to campaign for fellow party members paid for?

For example: Dick Cheney visited our fair state today to speak at a $250-a-plate fundraiser for Representative Rick Renzi. He traveled to and from the fundraiser past my office, so I watched the Secret Service investigate the cars parked along the street, the local police close the streets, the ~100 police motorcycles in the motorcade drive by, and the various other city/state vehicles involved. In addition, he must have gotten here on some sort of government plane.

So according to the article, the fundraiser raised about $100,000 for Renzi's campaign "after paying off expenses." Do those expenses include the above-mentioned police, secret service, plane travel, etc expenses? Or did we all pay for that?

Party affiliation aside, is it fair for this kind of stuff to be taxpayer funded in any administration? Or is there some sort of law about this that I'm missing? My google-foo is weak, and I don't know what to search for.

posted by crawl to Law & Government (3 answers total)

We pay for it, almost always in one way or another (and it's not fair). here's something on it. Many of Bush's domestic trips combine official, policy-oriented events with one or two campaign fundraising events, which nearly always are private. The government and various Republican Party groups share the costs of such trips, using formulas that take into account the amount of time spent on each endeavor.
If he appears at a policy event during the day, it's considered work, even if the policy event is a crock.
posted by amberglow at 7:09 PM on March 15, 2004

here's more
posted by amberglow at 7:12 PM on March 15, 2004

Response by poster: As far as I know, however, Cheney did no official business today. He was in town less than three hours, during which time he gave a 20 minute speech (in which he spoke against Kerry), shook some hands, posed for some $1,000-a-pop photos, and left. The article mentions nothing official about it.

But this is getting a little anti-Bush (and I realize I worded my question a little in that direction). I just want to know if there's a law that dictates policy in this situation. If not, the discussion of whether or not there should be is a whole 'nother thread, I think.
posted by crawl at 7:30 PM on March 15, 2004